


For All of These Things That I've Done

by ursus_mari



Series: Serious Business TM [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Introspection, Uther Pendragon's A+ Parenting (Merlin), fun times, realizing your father is a shitty abusive genocidal tyrant, the character development i needed arthur to have in the show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:21:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25972042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ursus_mari/pseuds/ursus_mari
Summary: Arthur confronts his father's sins, and his own as well.
Relationships: Arthur Pendragon & Uther Pendragon (Merlin)
Series: Serious Business TM [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1919899
Comments: 11
Kudos: 47





	For All of These Things That I've Done

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from I'll Be Good by Jaymes Young, which I listened to on repeat while writing this.
> 
> Uh, so I wrote this months ago and just rediscovered it and didn't hate it, so... here you go?
> 
> I'm always really upset that Arthur never confronted Uther's terrible actions and his own complicity and participation in said terrible actions. I've no idea if the thought process Arthur goes through works for you with his character, and I have made Uther more extreme towards Arthur, I think. On that note, there is mention of Uther locking Arthur up when he's displeased, so warning for that? Do you warn for that? I dunno
> 
> This is set in season 4 post Uther's death, but Agravaine doesn't exist because I hate him and don't want to deal with him and his sliminess.
> 
> Finally, if anything's weird, just know it's currently 5am and I haven't slept and I just edited this so like. Yeah. Feel free to let me know so I can fix it!

Sometimes Arthur sees Uther’s face when he looks in the mirror.

It’s in the uncompromising line of his brow when he’s upset, in the set of his jaw after a particularly frustrating council meeting. Less literally, it’s when he loses his temper and screams at whoever he can.

He thinks that means he’s a successful king, at first. Uther was the ideal, the example he’d aspired to live up to. Mostly, though, he feels like a failure, unsure and unfit to rule, and every time he sees Uther in the mirror, he hates himself a bit more.

With Uther comes screams and burning flesh, heads in baskets, paranoia and terror. In his deepest moments of doubt, when his father was alive, Arthur had suspected the only reason Uther commanded respect is because he terrified everyone.

Arthur doesn’t want to be feared.

It’s easier to aspire to ruling by fear when not confronted by direct examples, not just from his subjects but from his friends. It makes Arthur sick to remember the looks on his friends’ faces when he goes into a rage. Merlin in particular haunts him. Merlin carries on the way he might otherwise, taunting and teasing and coaxing Arthur down, but Arthur will never forget the stark fear that he shows when he thinks Arthur isn’t looking. It’s an echo of Morgana, who was a sorceress but who was _scared_. She thought Arthur could hurt her.

It haunts him at night to think that he might have.

He doesn’t like the way Merlin flinches, the way Guinevere shrinks, the way the ever talkative Gwaine goes quiet, Percival’s stiff shoulders, Elyan’s wariness, Leon’s refusal to make eye contact.

Every day Uther is gone, Arthur hates the parts of his father he sees in himself even more.

There are fewer executions under Arthur’s reign. Fewer witch hunts. Uther had said this would make criminals bold, sorcerers especially. They needed to be kept in check, taxed heavily, or they’d start to rise against their benevolent king.

Mostly people just look happier, less stressed. They look over their shoulders less, stop hurrying away from knights whenever possible.

Arthur doesn’t like that those who were meant to be protectors of the people had become a threat instead.

He changes what he can, fighting his father’s voice in his head all the way. _What do you know about being king?_ It whispers, full of contempt. _You are nothing but a child. You dare question my judgement?_

Uther’s ghost hovers, stills his hand, breathes down his neck. With him come the ghosts of those he has killed, their screams echoing in Arthur’s head, haunted eyes filling his dreams. The people who had been killed in that first raid, the one he led, the fires and the fear and the deaths of all those people, women and children, and every raid Uther had ordered since.

 _Druids,_ Uther scoffs. _They threaten the kingdom with their unnatural ways. Their deaths can only benefit Camelot._

That little boy Arthur had helped sneak out hadn’t been a threat. He’d been a child, not capable of harming anyone. He’d had a particular affinity for Morgana, as she had for him.

 _Abominations stick together,_ his father sneers.

A sorcerer stands before Arthur, caught muttering a spell to ensure his crops will grow plentiful. His eyes are wide and terrified. _Arrested for trying to make a living,_ Arthur thinks, feeling hollow and numb. It’s the first civilian he’s judged since his father died, one who used sorcery not to steal or kill but to make life a little more bearable.

The sorcerer is skinny, frail, and visibly starving. He’d lost his crops to a fire. He’s very clearly desperate, so much so he turned to sorcery despite the risks.

 _Kill him!_ Uther screams, loud enough that he’s all Arthur can hear. _Burn him!_

Arthur dismisses his court without making a decision, and stares at his shaking hands that seem to drip with blood, near retching at the accompanying smell of burning flesh.

That night, he lets the man out, tells him to run, and feigns innocence and concern when the guards report that his prisoner has escaped.

 _Traitor!_ Uther growls. _Disgrace to your kingdom! My son will not spare the lives of scum_.

 _All of the parts of me I hate most remind me of you,_ Arthur thinks in response.

When he looks in the mirror that morning, he hates his reflection a little less.

He goes to Gaius, asks as many questions as he can think of. He still doesn’t trust sorcerers. He’s been almost killed by a few too many of them for that. He still believes sorcery corrupts, because how can that kind of power not corrupt?

But Gaius, once he realizes what Arthur is looking for, gives an honest overview of the magic he’d learned before the Purge, its uses. Mostly he describes spells for cleaning and cooking, making plants grow and ensuring the health of animals. Spells to cure illnesses and heal wounds.

 _Ways to make life easier,_ Arthur thinks again, thinks of the man and his crops. _This isn’t worth killing over._

 _It’s sorcery!_ Uther screams, and the image of him, red faced and snarling, floats in Arthur’s mind.

_There’s no threat here._

_There’d been no threat and people had burned._

_But what about the sorcerers who’d tried to kill him and his father and unleashed curses on Camelot,_ he presses, feeling faintly sick. _What about the magic they used?_

Gaius looks him dead in the eye, and carefully, but firmly, he tells Arthur that most sorcerers don’t have that kind of power. That most people had just enough to do domestic tasks or encourage plant growth or heal a bit, usually had an affinity for a certain type of magic and very little ability otherwise. A skill like any other, for the most part.

 _But that doesn’t make sense,_ he insists, _because if that’s true, why and how have he and the city been attacked so frequently? What about Morgana? Morgause? The old man who killed his father?_

And Gaius frowns at him, asks him if he had the power to make life easier for himself and people like him, to get rid of the threat to his life, wouldn’t he do the same? Then reminds him of all the threats to his life that hadn’t used magic. _Sorcerers are still people, and power and desperation can lead one to do terrible things._

Arthur’s head spins and he collapses on the bench, holds his head in his hands, feels overwhelmed and lost and nauseous. The screams echo in his head.

That little seed of doubt Merlin had smothered but not fully killed that fateful day with Morgause begins to grow once more. _Did my father start this because of something he did? Because of me?_

It doesn't matter, in the end, one more reason to despise his father. Arthur can see that there is less danger in magic than his father had believed. There is great capability for harm, true, but Uther had done more harm than any sorcerer without any magic at all. 

And even if there is a capability for evil, then surely there is also potential for good. Beyond small household tasks, there is healing. That could save lives. And surely magic is a more effective way of fighting magical beasts? Surely it could protect civilians from harm?

Uther roars, furious and spitting, in the back of Arthur’s head. _You are worthless. Gullible, taken in by pretty tales. You are no king. You are a failure._

Arthur remembers standing before his father as a child, feeling Uther’s disapproval, locked in his chambers or the dungeons dare he disobey, and Uther’s rage as his father screamed himself hoarse. He remembers how small he felt, how desperate for approval and affection. The better he did, the older he got, the more sparingly affection was given.

That part of him, the part of him that yearns for his father’s approval even now, tells him on no uncertain terms that he is to forget his foolish, treasonous notion. Listen to your father, don’t presume you know anything, can do anything better, don’t forget your place.

Merlin’s absolute faith that he is destined to be a great king and Guinevere’s praise of the man he is inside halt him. _Trust your judgement, Arthur._ His knights and their unfaltering loyalty. _We’ll follow you anywhere._

What if that faith was because of his adherence to his father’s will? What if that would be what made him great?

But his father had thrown Guinevere in the dungeon, killed her and Elyan’s father. He had wanted Arthur to leave both her and Merlin to die. He had banished Gwaine, who hated nobles but had chosen to follow Arthur.

_You are not your father._

The people he loves have no love for Uther, of that he is sure. The people he trusts, good and wise and righteous, chose to put their faith in _him_. Despite his father, not because of him.

Arthur need not be a living embodiment of his father’s legacy.

_I don’t want to hurt people anymore._

Arthur starts drafting a proposal.

Later, after a difficult battle with his advisors and many stressful nights, magic is legalized in Camelot.

His father’s voice isn’t gone, harsh and disapproving, and his wariness of magic hasn’t disappeared, but Merlin looks at him with something like wonder, tears in his eyes, and Guinevere’s smile is brilliant and his knights stand tall and proud as he makes the announcement, and Arthur thinks that their pride is worth so, so much more than his father’s disapproval.

It doesn’t fix things, not by a long shot, but it’s a step in the right direction.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me [@ursus-mari](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/ursus-mari) on tumblr, if you are so inclined. Come chat about Merlin!


End file.
